St Mary’s Hosts Postgraduate Conference

The School of Arts and Humanities at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham will explore modernities, literature and popular culture during a day-long postgraduate conference on Saturday 16^th November. The conference has been organised as part of the core curricula of two new postgraduate programmes at the University College: MA Irish Studies and MA Gothic: Culture, Subculture, Counterculture. The morning section of the programme is given over to literature and popular culture in the modern period topic with a ‘Modern sexualities in the popular press’ keynote lecture by Prof Alison Oram (Leeds Metropolitan University). This will be followed by panel of papers by Prof Fiona Robertson (Research Professor, St Mary’s), Dr Brigid Cherry (Research Fellow, St Mary’s) and Dr Peter Howell (Senior Lecturer, St Mary’s) who will explore romanticism in architecture, modern selfhood and capitalist economies and popular gothic on the small screen. The afternoon session under the aegis of the School’s Centre for Irish Studies kicks off at 1.30pm with a keynote lecture ‘The role of violence in Britain’s Irish settlements of 1921’ delivered by Prof Ronan Fanning (Emeritus Professor, University College, Dublin). Dr Ciara Meehan (University of Hertfordshire) and Mike Mecham (PhD candidate, St Mary’s) will focus on Irish politics and history during a panel discussion, whilst Irish literature and culture will form the final panel session with Maria Rita Viana (Wolfson College, Oxford/University Sao Paulo), Dr Tom Herron (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Dr Sinead Moynihan (University of Exeter) with papers on Yeats’ letters and selfhood, contemporary aisling poetry and Neil Jordan’s trope of the seaside. Conference Convenor Prof Lance Pettitt said, “The aim of the conference is to provide a forum for sharing ideas about different ways of discussing modernity and applying it across different disciplines. “Although it’s part of the MA students’ programme the conference is accessible to non-academic audiences.” The conference is being held at St Mary’s Strawberry Hill campus. The full day starts at 9.45am and the half day at 1.30pm with the Irish keynote lecture. Prices range from £10 to £25 depending on the tariff. For more information and to book your place, please email wendy.bushnell@stmarys.ac.uk or call 020 8240 4249.